Going Beyond the Cloud at Interop

Day 2 at Interop started with the same theme that was so prevalent during Day 1: cloud. However, the panel that discussed cloud in the keynote session focused on some of the more recent issues surrounding cloud, specifically the outage at Amazon and the security breach at Sony. The panel, which included members from Avaya, Terremark and Rackspace, definitely did not feel that these events left a black mark on cloud, but they did highlight the need for further attentiveness by cloud users and open communication from cloud vendors. It is important to have a strong relationship between user and vendor in a cloud engagement rather than simply purchasing cloud service directly off the Internet.

Beyond that, the day’s events moved away from the cloud discussion. The second keynote featured Kirk Skaugen of Intel discussing his company’s view of the digital landscape leading up to 2015. After showing how the amount of data on the Internet in 2010 exceeded the amount of data on the Internet in all the years up to that point, Skaugen showed Intel’s projections for the year 2015: 1 billion additional people on the Internet, 15 billion connected devices and more than 1,000 exabytes of data per year. These numbers will drive differences in mentality and methodology around Internet infrastructure. 

The final keynote, by Steve Bandrowczak of Avaya, covered the changes occurring in IT departments with all the massive shifts in the industry. While IT is dealing with these shifts along with constant cost pressures, they should keep in mind three guiding principles: keep people first, fit for purpose when planning, and focus on results-based innovation. Steve urged IT staff to adopt these principles and become an “organization of yes” rather than an organization that is viewed as a roadblock in a firm.

The informational sessions, while obviously keeping cloud in mind, also concentrated on different disciplines. “The Evil Hack in the Sky” covered the difficulties in implementing security on virtual machines and also discussed a new attacking scheme of “whaling,” where attacks are very targeted toward a specific user or piece of data. The main takeaway was that securing the cloud begins with securing the individual.

“The Real Next Gen Network” examined recent trends in the datacenter and what types of networks might be needed to support the compute power and connectivity that exist. Traditional networking methods may not be able to scale or extend to meet these new requirements, so innovation is required to tap into the potential being created in the new datacenters.

The final informational session, “Operating at the Edge,” was an overview of mobility policy. With users bringing in their personal devices—whether approved by IT or not—there is a balance that must be struck between allowing users to be productive and ensuring that data is secure. The proliferation of mobile devices seems to be as revolutionary as the cloud as far as driving change in an organization’s IT operations. For now, there do not seem to be best practices around allowing personal devices, and businesses are experimenting with policies. The Enterprise Mobility Foundation is an organization that provides thought leadership around this topic, and companies who want to keep up with the latest conversations around mobility may want to explore what they have to offer.

In general, there are some themes forming in reaction to the revolutionary technology that is coming on the scene. The IT department is clearly changing, and there is a chance to drive that discussion and define the changes to maximize innovation and opportunity. Also, end-users have become very powerful in today’s IT landscape, and they can use that power to communicate requirements if they get engaged with vendors.

Things wrap up tomorrow, so check back for a report on Day 3!